


times are hard for dreamers

by daisyrachel



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Amelie - Freeform, M/M, Pining, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, i guess?, its sad, just FYI
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 20:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11997267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyrachel/pseuds/daisyrachel
Summary: He remembers the most important day of his life, when he walked out, moved to Paris with no money and threw himself to his knees and begged the landlord to let a man with no money and no job stay in his open apartments. Giving excuses and pleas, leaving himself at the mercy of the landlord.The man sighed and threw him the keys.





	times are hard for dreamers

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the legends romcom week!! it's more based on amelie the show than amelie the movie but it's still really good and sad sorry

He remembers the day he was told about his condition. His father had come home from a work trip and he could hear it, his excitement, the thump-thump-thumping of his heart in his chest. He remembers his father taking out the stethoscope and telling him his heart was too fast, that he had to be homeschooled, that he had to live inside.   
  
He remembers Fluffy the goldfish telling him they would always be best friends and jumping into his drinking glass. His mother had shrieked and his father had said it was too much excitement for his heart to handle. He had released Fluffy into the water behind their house later that day. His father had put his hand on the shoulder promised Ray it was for the best.   
  
He remembers his mother taking him to Notre Dame the next day, promising she felt sorry for Fluffy and for him, and she wanted him to have a  _ little _ bit of excitement. Just a little bit though, not too much, never too much. He remembers her praying for a son and he remembers hearing the thump and being scared it was his heart, but instead finding his mother lying on the ground behind him.   
  
He remembers the day his father built the shrine and put up the garden gnome with it. He remembers the constant reminders to clean the gnome and care for the shrine while he was also cooking, cleaning, and financing the household.   
  
He remembers the most important day of his life, when he walked out, moved to Paris with no money and threw himself to his knees and begged the landlord to let a man with no money and no job stay in his open apartments. Giving excuses and pleas, leaving himself at the mercy of the landlord.   
  
The man sighed and threw him the keys.   
  
+   
  
He finds a job, eventually.   
  
He works at a café, something of a cliché. They have their boss, Sara, who used to perform knife tricks with the circus. His fellow wait staff consists of Laurel, the hopeless romantic whose ex-boyfriend refuses to leave her alone and Felicity, the cute, frail girl who was something of a hypochondriac.    
  
They have a total of three regular customers; Oliver, Laurel’s aforementioned ex-boyfriend is one. There’s Jax, a flight attendant who stops in to get a coffee before jetting off to Rome, or London, or New York. Then there’s Hunter, the staple “starving artist” it would be impossible to have a Parisian café without.   
  
They have a window, a cute window he stares out often. It’s painted on, little butterflies and bees, which Ray doesn’t quite understand because it’s a café, not a honey shop, but it’s pretty and it makes him smile. His favorite part of the window is the misspelled name, or the paint splatter that was put there by accident.   
  
Sara finds him staring out the window and sighs. “It’s time to go home, Ray.” He leaves as he hears Felicity sneeze and gasp, no doubt already thinking what her new disease could possibly be. He hears Oliver beg for Laurel to take him back once again and he hears Laurel dump a hot coffee on his lap, not for the first time.   
  
Hunter smiles at him as he walks out and quotes his newest poem, the one he’s been working on for the past three years. Ray smiles and begins his journey home, only sixty-three lamp posts away.   
  
+   
  
Ray is in his home when he hears the news. The newscaster is saying that Princess Diana is dead. Ray hears it and drops the water bottle he’d been holding, dislodging a wooden plank on the floor in the process.   
  
He leans over as they begin to talk about how she met Prince Charles and the early days of their star-crossed romance. He looks into the box and finds just a few items. A watch, a bouncy ball, a notebook filled with games of tic-tac-toe.    
  
Ray couldn’t help but smile. Here in this box was someone’s childhood. Then he was suddenly upset, reminding himself that here was someone’s childhood in this very box, and they weren’t in possession of it.   
  
The newscaster had moved on past Diana’s divorce at this point. They were discussing her philanthropy, and when they call her the mother of the unloved, Ray sees her in the room with him. She’s gorgeous, just as beautiful the day she was on her wedding, ten times that.   
  
But more importantly, she’s good. She’s glowing with her goodness and it feels good and Ray wants it, he wants to be surrounded by goodness constantly, all the time, and she looks at the box. Then he looks at the box and she nods, and he knows what he has to do.   
  
After all, someone has to carry on her legacy. And if he succeeds, well, maybe he’ll do this good deed thing more often.   
  
+   
  
Ray starts his search rather unsuccessfully the very next day with the grocer from downstairs, Harry. Ray can’t bring himself to like the man, as he’s rude to his assistants and to Ray, but he does end up being helpful. He tells Ray that he doesn’t remember the man, but his parents, who owned the building before he did might.   
  
Ray heads to the train. He loves the train; he sees it as everything Paris is, in a smaller setting. It’s busy and loud and noisy and it smells, but it’s beautiful and full of life at the same time.    
  
Ray is waiting for his train when he trips over him. The book he’s carrying spirals to the floor, and Ray doesn’t get a good look at him until he’s leaned down to pick it up. He’s tall and gorgeous, his hair is a deep brown, swept over his eyes, and haven opens up when the man finally looks at him.   
  
The man’s eyes widen and Ray sees doves, he sees candy hearts, he sees Christmas sweaters and matching mugs and snuggling on the couch. He sees the shades of pink and red that envelop the two of them and there’s no one else left in the entire train station but him and the mystery man.   
  
The man opens his mouth. “You… um…” the man looks up, “Shit! My train!” He runs off, leaving Ray shaken, and missing a train of his own.   
  
+   
  
Ray’s meeting with Monsieur and Madame Wells had been rather disappointing. They had not remembered who had lived in the apartment before him until the last minute, when Madame Wells had given him the name Leonard Srant.   
  
The issue was that after searching high and low, Ray could find no trace of the elusive Monsieur Srant.   
  
The next day he meets Monsieur Stein. Monsieur Stein lives in the apartment below him. Monsieur Stein has a weak composure; his bones are brittle and his skin is paper-thin. He spends all his days painting the same piece,  _ The Luncheon of the Boating Party _ by Renoir. He repaints it every day, except one figure, the girl with the glass.   
  
“I’m fascinated by her,” Monsieur Stein tells him, “She’s so aloof, distanced. I can’t seem to capture her.” True to his word, there is a blank space wherever the girl with the glass should be.   
  
Ray asks him if he remembers Monsieur Srant, the man who used to live in the apartment above him. Stein tells him that the man’s name was not Srant, but Snart. Ray is eternally thankful, and resolves to visit the man the next afternoon for lunch as a thank you.   
  
+   
  
After he learns the man’s true name, it’s a matter of hours before he’s able to find Monsieur Leonard Snart. He leaves the man a mysterious voicemail, leading him to a phone booth at the corner of a street just by Ray’s apartment.   
  
Ray watches the man he presumes is Leonard Snart from a phone booth across the street. He sees Monsieur Snart step into the phone booth, not Ray’s phone booth, the other one. He sees Snart look at the box, recognize it, and then open it.   
  
He finds the notebook and smiles. When he sees the bouncy ball he laughs. By the time Snart has gotten to the watch, he’s crying. When he picks up the phone, so does Ray, eager to listen in.   
  
“Yes, operator?” he can hear Snart say, “I’d like to be connected to the Rory household.” He waits a moment and then continues. “Mick, hey Mick, it’s me, Len. Look, I know I’ve given you no reason to ever want to see me again, but I want to make things work. I want to see our daughter, please Mick-“ Ray waits another moment and then hears, “Yes, Friday night works perfectly. I promise I won’t let you down Mick, not you or Annalise, not this time, I swear.”    
  
He sees Snart shaking, and then the man turns around and Ray can see that he’s smiling and crying, He runs out of the phone box looking like a man with a mission, and Ray feels more accomplished than he ever has in his entire life. Then he sees a young blind woman struggling to find her way around.   
  
He grabs her by the arm and asks for her name. “Kendra Saunders,” she responds in a crisp British accent, presumably a tourist. He tells her a shame that she hasn’t seen any of the sites and begins to lead her around. She’s confused, and she doesn’t know him, but she gets the hang of it pretty quickly. When he describes the Eiffel Tower she gasps, when he takes her into the Louvre she smiles, and when they’re overlooking the Seine she laughs with joy.   
  
It’s two in the morning by the time he drops her back off at her hotel, and she asks for his name. He tells her Ray, just Ray, and quietly curses himself, wishing he could have something more anonymous. She hugs him and tells him he’s a good man and makes her way inside. He heads home for the evening, pleased.   
  
+   
  
His next target of help is his father. The man hasn’t left his home in close to eighteen years, not since his wide, Ray’s mother, had died. So he took another train out to the country to visit his father and convince him to take a trip.   
  
It hadn’t worked. His father had insisted that he stay, take care of the memorial and the garden gnome. As long as the gnome was there, he couldn’t leave the house. Ray had urged him to reconsider but respected his wishes.   
  
He walked back to the train station, which was infinitely more difficult while lugging a gigantic garden gnome in his bag. He shuffled his way through the station, sighing in relief when he could finally put the heavy figure down.   
  
Upon arriving back in Paris, he meandered through the train station once again taking in its beauty. And once again, he bumped into the gorgeous man. Ray felt his mouth open, ready to say something, but the man interrupted him.   
  
“You again!” says the man, just as the last call for the train is sounding, “I-“ and then he runs off, but not without bumping into Ray again and yelling “Sorry!” Ray felt a thud on his feet and realized the man had dropped the scrapbook he had been carrying. Ray looked to call after him but he was long gone. He sighed, scooped up the book and put it in the bag with the gnome, beginning to walk home.   
  
+   
  
That very evening he takes the book to Stein, because where else would he take something curious?   
  
Stein looks at it quizzically, and asks if he’s opened it. Ray shakes his head and Stein opens it to a random page in the middle. He thumbs through it and Ray cranes his neck to see before Stein just sighs and passes him the book.   
  
It’s negatives. Hundreds upon hundreds of picture negatives, taken from the photo booth in the Paris train station. There are couples kissing, best friends hugging, and people smiling. It’s a book of joy, and stories and Ray loves every inch of it.   
  
Until Stein points out the man. The man whose negatives and original pictures are both in the book, with both of them torn. He sits and looks at the camera, expressionless, and rips both copies of his photos. If he didn’t want them, why take the photos in the first place?   
  
Ray wants to keep staring at the curious, expressionless man, but Stein flips to the front of the book and finds a name.  _ Property of Nathaniel Heywood _ it reads, with and address and a phone number beneath it, where it should be returned to if found.   
  
“You should return it,  _ non _ ?” asked Stein, smiling slyly. “Meet this man, the one who takes these photos.” Noticing Ray’s slight blush, he continues. “Perhaps even get a drink with him?”   
  
Ray nods, and clutches the scrapbook closer to his chest.   
  
+   
  
The address in the book is a shop, presumably Nathaniel’s place of work. Ray goes in disguise. Dressed like a priest and wearing sunglasses he stumbles in, only to hear two women talking about the man he should be,  _ has to _ , return this book to.   
  
“Nate’s late,” the first one says, all warm tones and ethereal beauty, “I wonder where he’s off to today.”   
  
The other woman laughs, blonde hair bouncing with the bubbly noise. “Probably off doing something  _ whimsical _ , an art project to  _ change the world _ !” Ray smiles, glad to know that Nathaniel is everything he’d thought. “Oh look, here comes,  _ l’homme de l’heure _ !”   
  
Ray hides behind a bookshelf and sees Nathaniel walk in. “Very funny, Courtney,” he says, before slipping past and giving the other girl a kiss on the cheek. “Good morning, Amaya.”   
  
The girl, Amaya, swats at him. “If we were dating,” she warns, “that would be cute.”    
  
Ray feels a tension in his chest relieve and he takes a step forward, ready to give Nathaniel the book. He sees the man in front of him and pushes forwards, despite the nervousness in his stomach. It’s not until Nathaniel’s eyes fall to the book at his stomach that he stops in his tracks. “Hey,” Nathaniel says, “That’s my book! You found it!”   
  
Ray turns around and runs out of the shop.   
  
He can hear Nathaniel running behind him, yelling things like “Wait!” and “Please stop!” But Ray is fast, he always has been and he loses Nathaniel in no time at all. He wanders towards his building and sits down in his apartment, looking at the book with a sigh. He needs to return the book, but he needs to know who the man is, and he can’t ever go back into the shop.   
  
He considers calling the man, he still has a phone number after all, but then he remembers one of his mother’s lessons, from when he was a child and homeschooled. “Zeno once stated,” she was fond of saying, “That two objects can never truly touch, because every time you move an object hallway towards another, there’s always halfway more to go. Thus, Zeno’s paradox was born. What does that teach us, Raymond?”   
  
Ray had never been sure, but now he understood. Everything had an obstacle, there was always halfway more to go. Don’t get too close, get just enough so you have what you need and end.    
  
He sends Nathaniel a picture of the book. He gets a response almost immediately. The first one asks  _ can I have my book back? _   
  
Ray looks at his closet, and puts on another disguise. He wears a cowboy hat and a bandana covers his mouth and nose, leaving only his eyes visible, and takes another photo sending it to Nathaniel.   
  
Once again, he is met with a speedy response.  _ Who are you? _   
  
He sends a one-word response:  _ Ray. _   
  
Maybe he doesn’t have to be the one to go half way this time.   
  
+   
  
Ray, of course, has not given up on doing good deeds. Just the other day, he pretended that Oliver was about to stiff him on his coffee payment and got him kicked out of the café for good. Sara was pleased that someone had finally given her a reason to do it.    
  
Laurel had been thankful after, saying, “Now with him gone, maybe I can focus on actually trying to move on with my love life.” Ray pretended as if he had not noticed her gaze float over to Felicity, who was rambling on with Hunter about the newest disease she had fallen victim to.   
  
To each their own, he supposes.   
  
He’s in the middle of writing a love note to Laurel (not from himself, of course, from Felicity, his dreams as of late have been haunted by short brown hair and warm eyes), when his father runs into the café, screaming about the gnome.   
  
“It’s gone,” he says, “And I keep getting letters from it!” Ray plays dumb, asks like he doesn’t know exactly what’s going on and asks what’s missing. “The gnome!” his father proclaims, “The gnome is gone!”   
  
And then he shows Ray the photos. The gnome was in London, by Big Ben. The gnome travelled across the United States, seeing everything from the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was at the Sydney Opera House, it was running with the bulls, it was on a plane getting a kiss on the cheek from Jax.   
  
Ray had told him the gnome seemed to be having fun, more fun than he had ever had as a part of the shrine. Ray’s father looks at him quizzically when he suggests having dinner together the next night, in Paris. He agrees.   
  
Ray is the happiest he’s been in a while.   
  
+   
  
It comes to a head later that evening, when Ray is doing a good deed for dear Hunter. The man was a wordsmith and he was good at what he did, but he left everything unfinished and therefore impossible to publish.   
  
Ray has only half a bottle of red spray paint yet with several more words of Hunter’s poetry to write when he sees Nathaniel handing out posters, pinning them up. “Please help me find him,” Nathaniel is saying, “He keeps disappearing into thin air.”   
  
Ray is curious. Does he mean the scrapbook? Or perhaps something else, like a cat that has run off. Why a cat, a pet, or anything would run away from Nathaniel, he had no idea.   
  
He watched as Nathaniel finds his last poster and takes a long look at it. He brings it closer to his face, squinting at it, and crumples it to put in his pocket rather than hanging up. Nathaniel walks away with purpose, a strange cloud of determination surrounding him.   
  
Ray creeps out from behind the wall he had jumped behind when he first saw Nathaniel, and walks forward to see one of the posters. It’s a picture of a man in a cowboy outfit, with a familiar pair of eyes staring at him accompanied by the message  _ have you see this man? _ Written below it was a note to call Nathaniel, with his phone number attached.    
  
Nathaniel was looking for  _ him _ .   
  
Ray pulled out his phone and sent a text. Nathaniel had made a step forward, now maybe it was time for him to go halfway more.  _ Meet me tomorrow _ , he said,  _ Montmartre Carousel. I’ll give you your book. _ _   
_   
_ Maybe it’s time to stop running _ , he thought, looking at the spray paint still in his hand.  _ Well, maybe soon. _ _   
_   
+   
  
Ray is waiting in a phone booth.   
  
Ray is waiting in a phone booth, next door to the Montmartre Carousel, watching Nathaniel from a distance.   
  
Ray is wearing sunglasses to disguise himself, the only thing Nathaniel knows about him is his eyes, but he can still see how beautiful the man is. Ray watches from a distance, sees Nathaniel concentrate on the clues, on his clues, looking for his notebook. Looking for Ray.   
  
Ray is nervous, and Nathaniel is beautiful. Nathaniel’s eyebrows crease when he’s concentrating, and his hands often fly up in confusion. When he reaches understanding his face curls into a toothy grin and Ray’s heart stops.    
  
Ray waits in a phone booth, and loves Nathaniel from a distance.   
  
Nathaniel finally steps into the phone booth across the street from Ray, and sees the scrapbook, sees the post it note telling him to wait for a call. Ray dials the number and asks Nathaniel about the man in the photo booth, the one with no expression, who leaves his photos and his negatives.   
  
“It’s you,” Nathaniel says, “from the train station. I need to meet you,  _ please _ let me meet you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you in days, I need to know who you are, please,  _ Ray _ .”   
  
Ray sighs into the phone before complying. He tells Nathaniel to solve Zeno’s paradox and meet him at the café tomorrow at two. Nathaniel breathes a “thank you” and hangs up, scrapbook in hand.   
  
Ray has taken another step halfway.   
  
+   
  
It’s 2:15 and Ray is worried. He’s been sitting at a table for the last hour, since Sara asked him why he was so nervous he kept spilling coffee. She had sat him down and went to fetch Laurel and Felicity to fill in for him, even though they were on their break.   
  
He should have been here fifteen minutes ago. Why was he late? Maybe he died on the way. Maybe he didn’t figure out how to solve the paradox. Maybe, maybe, maybe, is more comforting than thinking about what to say when he’s here.   
  
Ray sees him from a block away and bolts to the bathroom. He can hear the door ring as it opens and he hears a pause before Nathaniel speaks. “Where’s Ray?” he says, rather breathily. Had he been running?   
  
Sara greets him at the door, Ray can hear her footsteps. “So you’re Nathaniel, huh?”   
  
Nathaniel says. “Please, call me Nate.”   
  
“So,  _ Nate _ , what exactly are your intentions with our dear Ray?” That’s Laurel, joining Sara. His friends are rather protective, and he hasn’t given them any reason not to be. “We’re rather fond of him, and we certainly wouldn’t want him getting hurt.”   
  
Felicity is hanging on her arm, Ray can tell, when he hears her soprano say “Yeah, and if you’re even thinking of hurting him, you can walk right back out that door.”   
  
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Nathaniel, no, Nate, quickly backtracks, “I really don’t.”   
  
“Then what  _ do _ you want?” asks Sara, imposing as ever.   
  
“I just want to meet him,” says Nathaniel, “to be with him. I love him.”   
  
Ray’s breath catches in his throat. It’s loud, loud enough for Nate to hear and begin stumbling towards the bathroom where he’s hiding. It’s enough to make Ray throw the door open and look at Nathaniel standing in front of him.   
  
Nate’s hair is askew and his face is covered in a light sheen of sweat, as if he’d been running to get here. His jaw is angular, covered in light stubble. His eyes are warm and inviting and Ray is getting lost, far too quickly. He reaches a hand out, and Ray brushes past him and runs, runs, runs, and decides to never stop running.    
  
He hides around the corner of the café, and hears Felicity give Nate his address. He has to get home first and lock himself up and never come out again because he’s gotten close, much too close and it hurts and he loves it and he never wants to feel like this again and he’s not sure that he ever could.   
  
So he keeps running.   
  
+   
  
He’s greeted by Stein asking how his meeting went. Stein wiggles his eyebrow suggestively and Ray screams. He screams and screams and tells Stein to stay out of his business and never to talk to him and that he didn’t like the old man anyway.   
  
He keeps running upstairs, hears Stein yell that he’s painted something that’s not the boat party. Ray wants to turn around and hug the man, he’s proud, but he can’t because it’s too late and Ray has to close himself off forever.   
  
He slams the door behind him and collapses. He’s not crying, or at least he doesn’t think he is, but he’s staring at the door, waiting, willing, and then the knock he’s been hoping for comes. “Ray, it’s me.”   
  
Nate is outside. “Ray, please let me in.” Nate followed him home. “Ray, please, I just want to talk to you.” Nate is here, just outside of Ray’s door, just outside of his grasp. “Please, open the door Ray.”   
  
Stein is yelling at him from one floor below, telling him he needs to open up. “Ray,” Stein is screaming, probably at great risk to his own lungs, “I painted  _ you _ !”   
  
All the noise suddenly stops and Ray hears silence on both ends. He takes one, two, three steps forwards. He grasps the cool brass of the doorknob, same as the day he moved in, and turns his wrist just the right amount, just as he does every day, every normal day.   
  
And he pulls the door open.   
  
He sees Nate, Nate, and only Nate standing in the doorway. Nate reaches forward, and Ray stumbles back, creating distance. Nate understands and takes a step back too, and Ray wishes he wouldn’t. “Hi,” Nate says, softly, “I’m glad we’re finally seeing each other.”   
  
Ray is too frozen to nod, and he hopes Nate understands that he wants to say  _ yes, me too. _ Nate continues. “I’ve wanted to find you for a while,” he says,” I’ve been looking for you for months.”   
  
_ I’ve been watching you look _ , Ray thinks,  _ and wishing that whole time that I could stand with you, look with you, look for something together instead of for each other. _ _   
_   
“I’m tired of this cat and mouse game we’ve been playing.”   
  
_ Me too. I want to stand next to you. _   
  
“I love you.”   
  
Ray stops. He heard it before, in the café, but it catches him off guard now too. “I love you,” Nate repeats, “even if you don’t love me back. Even if you can’t love me back. I just want to be with you, in some capacity, so  _ please _ Ray, say  _ something _ .”   
  
Ray wants to shout that he loves Nate, even if he doesn’t know how to love, or what love is. He looks frightened and he is, and Nate realizes what he’s been missing. “Oh, um, right,” says Nate, “Zeno’s paradox. I’ve been looking into it, yeah? Two objects can never touch because if one keeps moving halfway, there’s always halfway more to go. But it forgets the fact that two objects can move towards each other at the same time.”   
  
_ Oh _ . It’s simple, really. Ray should have thought of it himself. It’s what they’ve been doing this whole time, isn’t it? Stepping towards each other, blindly, hoping they could finally connect.   
  
“Look, we’ll do it together, okay?” says Nate, “I’ll go first, even.” And true to his word, Nate takes a step forward. Ray takes a deep breath and follows suit. Nate takes a second step, and so does Ray.    
  
With Nate’s third step, he crosses into the apartment. Ray practically throws himself at the other man, wrapping him in his arms and kissing the life out of him. Every bone in Ray’s body is singing, screaming  _ yes this is right; this is what we’ve been waiting for _ . Ray never wants to stop kissing Nate, but he has the rest of his life to do that and there’s something more pressing that needs to be said.   
  
Ray pulls back and looks at Nate. “I love you,” he says and repeats it over and over and over again, until Nate shuts him up by pulling him back in.   
  
+   
  
A week later, Ray takes Nate to the train station.   
  
They’re not going on a trip; they’ve known each other too short a time to do that. Ray leads Nate through the crowds, being careful to make sure his hands never let go. Nate is claustrophobic, and likes being reassured in packed spaces.   
  
That’s just one of many things Ray has learned about Nate in the past week they’ve spent holed up in his apartment. Nate was born in April; his favorite color is purple. His lucky numbers are 23, 48, and 91. His favorite book is  _ A Tale of Two Cities _ , and he cries over Sydney Carton. He can’t carry a tune, but that won’t stop him from belting out Michael Jackson.   
  
He doesn’t have a good relationship with his father, but their repairing it. He spent most of his childhood in hospitals because of a disease. The freckles on his back look like a winking face from the right angle, and Ray falls more in more in love with him every day they spend together.   
  
They finally reach their destination. “The photo booth?” Nate asks. Ray nods his head and Nate doesn’t even blink. Nate understands that Ray isn’t always a big talker, and it’s another thing he loves about the man. “Where we met?” Ray shakes his head. That’s not why they’re there.   
  
Despite the crowd, it’s late, and the station is just clearing out for the evening. They wait for ten, twenty, thirty minutes and Ray points silently at the man approaching them. Nate gaps. “That’s the man!” he says. “The man in the photo booth!” He’s wearing a work uniform and they watch him tinker with the booth for a few minutes before walking in. They see the flash, hear the clicks, and he walks out, takes a look at the photo and the negative, and leaves them be.   
  
“He’s a repairman,” Nate breathes, completely in awe, “He’s just taking the photos to test, and he never keeps any.” He turns to Ray and kisses him gently. “Thank you, for solving every mystery in my life. You’re the answer, to everything.” Ray smiles in response and tugs him towards the photo booth.   
  
They pull back the curtain and step into the booth. Nate puts in the 50 francs and they listen to the machine whirr into life. This is the last mystery that tied them together. Ray looks at Nate, almost nervous. “Where do we go from here?”   
  
Nate looks back at him fondly and grasps his hand. “Somewhere,” he says, and begins to turn back towards the camera. Ray smiles, looking at the black dot, ready to go somewhere.   
  
And they lean in, looking towards the blinding flash.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or kudos to show me you care! holla at me on tumblr : jewishraypalmer.tumblr.com


End file.
